Piloting, Owning and Operating a Beech Bonanza A36 - www.gotoair.com

This is the story of owning and operating a 1993 Beech Bonanza A36 in the UK and some of its adventures and flights. I have owned this plane for over six years now.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Longest business trip in the Bonanza A36

I have done some fairly decent trips in the Bonanza now including my recent jaunt to Paris which was very exciting but this week has called for me to use the plane for a three day trip that took me first from Blackpool to London (Denham) for an overnight stop in the city.

Yesterday I flew direct from Denham, again using my IMC rating to complete the otherwise impossible trip. I flew IFR (VFR on top in most parts) all the way and took a routing up the east of the country to avoid low airpsace around Liverpool/Manchester. This was a revelation. I also got a radar service from Daventry all the way to my first ILS into Glasgow for some extortinate handling charges and another overnight park while I visited our office in the city.

Finally today I flew back in some very windy conditions which at times made me wonder if it would be suitable to fly late in the day when I need to.

The weather out of Glasgow was very turbulent at low level and a fairly low cloud base but Glasgow cleared my to climb into the cloud to the MSA and once in the cloud things smoothed out pretty quickly. The Bonanza autopilot was great and once we leveled off at 4500ft it was a case of monitoring my instruments until we reached Walney Island where a decent through broken cloud was possible. Landing at Blackpool was a little hairy with cross winds approaching the Bonanza A36 suggested limits.

A little more in the experience bank. In two weeks I have to go to Glasgow in the morning and pick up 2 pax to go back to Gloucester and then back to Glasgow in the evening and then a return trip to Blackpool. That will be fun (hopefully).